IN a veiled response to the tirade of Mr Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, on Monday, Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, yesterday, declared that expelled elements he described as “vagabonds” no longer have control over the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Both Wike and Makinde were members of the G5 governors in the lead-up to the 2023 general elections, but later fell apart shortly after the election.
Speaking at the commissioning of Oyo PDP Secretariat at Oke Ado, Ibadan, yesterday, Makinde said the “vagabonds” in the PDP were expelled in November 2025, and attributed the party’s challenges to a leadership vacuum that emerged after 2015, which he said allowed indiscipline to thrive.
“The vagabonds in PDP; they grew up in 2015. They had their time and 10 years — a decade — they practised their ‘vagabonds’ in the PDP. But they were expelled in November 2025, so no more vagabonds in PDP.
“So whatever it is that they are doing, you should be able to trace it back to their origin.
In 2015, PDP lost power at the federal level; there was a gap in the leadership; otherwise, those vagabonds would never have been able to take hold of PDP.”
The governor said he was previously aligned with the group but had since distanced himself. The governor also acknowledged past political alignments he described as regrettable, stating that he had since resolved not to repeat them.
He announced that the newly commissioned secretariat would be named Mustapha House in honour of Alhaji Omowunmi Mustapha, the former state chairman under whose leadership the PDP returned to power in Oyo State in 2019.
He said: “After the PDP was out of power at the federal level from 2015, it was in 2019 that a chairman led the party back to power in Oyo State. That chairman is Alhaji Mustapha. In recognition of this legacy, this building will be named Mustapha House.”
Makinde added that he will formally hand over the title deeds of the property to the PDP National Chairman, who will transmit it to the party’s Board of Trustees.
